You're right, you didn't "suggest" it. You said it categorically, and have said it multiple times.
Don't you begin to see how incomprehensible it is that you're proposing that the church apostatized under a man who (a) was selected by the Roman church to be bishop; (b) knew the Apostles, or at least Peter and Paul, personally; (c) wrote an epistle that was treated as Scripture by a significant number of Christian believers for the next couple of centuries; and (d) died as a martyr for the faith ... while the possibility that you, Iscool, not Clement, might be the one who's really apostate never enters into your head?
And Paul was right there in Rome when Peter died...
There's no definitive proof that Paul's head was still connected to his shoulders by then, as far as I know. In fact, I can show you a couple of Bible verses which seem to indicate it probably wasn't.
The Martyrs are some of the greatest witnesses for the truth of the Faith.
There you go...And there's your Catholic church...
You forgot to mention that a significant number of Christians did NOT treat Clement's epistles as Holy Scripture...Ever...And these became the 'heretics' your church brazenly writes about...